Facebook users should expect to pay for privacy, Sandberg says

Facebook’s second in command Sheryl Sandberg said Friday that users wanting to opt out of having their data used by advertisers will have to pay for that assurance.

The comments came in the wake of revelations that the personal information of 87 million users had been inappropriately used by the data firm Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 election campaign, the New York Post reported.

While different forms of opt-out are already available on Facebook, an opt-out at the highest level “would be a paid product,” Sandberg said during an interview on NBC's "Today" show, the Post reported.

Furthermore, Sandberg suggested that the public has not seen the last of Facebook’s privacy scandal.

“I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re not going to find more,” she said, “because we are.”

“I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re not going to find more, because we are.”

— Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer

Facebook reportedly knew of the harvested data as early as December 2015. At that time, Sandberg said the company took no action because it believed Cambridge Analytica had deleted the data on its own. Only recently has the social media company taken steps to secure user data.

“They gave us assurances, and it wasn’t until other people told us it wasn’t true,” Sandberg said.

Sandberg also denied any notion that the company is a “surveillance operation” that exploits users data for advertisers.

“We are not sweeping up data. People are inputting data. People are sharing data with Facebook,” she said.